Features

Agents' Fees Revealed

PUBLISHED

11:32 6th September 2013

Annual figures announced

The latest publication of Football League clubs' spending on agents' fees has revealed that clubs committed a total of £21.5m to agents during the 2012/13 season – £170,000 less than the previous twelve months.

Championship clubs accounted for £18.6m of the total, with League 1 and League 2 clubs spending £2.2m and £0.7m respectively. Clubs committed to pay agents in 776 of the 3,746 player transactions that took place.

Seven clubs did not spend any money on agents’ fees at all (Blackpool, Hartlepool United, Accrington Stanley, AFC Wimbledon, Morecambe, Barnet and Crewe Alexandra) with 24 clubs spending less than £25,000 each.

In announcing the latest agents' fees figures Football League Chairman Greg Clarke said: "Again, this is a considerable amount of money to be leaving the game. However, the real challenge is to ensure that such payments are part of a sustainable financial model with clubs only spending what they can afford. In conjunction with clubs, we’re making real progress towards this goal and now have all three divisions operating Financial Fair Play regulations.”

In the Championship, the 2013/14 season represents the first accounting period against which Financial Fair Play sanctions could be levied (from January 2015). In Leagues 1 and 2 clubs are operating the Salary Cost Management Protocol which limits spending on player’s salaries to 60% and 55% of turnover, respectively.

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Wolves have added the following statement to the generic information sent out by the Football League:

Wolves figure of £1,676,300 was the third highest in the Championship and relates to the period between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013.

There has been a change in the reporting process this year, with the figure including all agent fees committed to by the club during that timespan, even if that includes instalments payable outside of that period.

In previous years the figure has included only agents fees or instalments paid during the quoted period.

The figure for Wolves relates a total of 52 transactions which includes new signings and registrations, loans, updating contracts and cancelling contracts.

The permanent signings Wolves made during this period include high profile and expensive players Bakary Sako, Bjorn Sigurdarson, Tongo Doumbia, Razak Boukari, Georg Margreitter and Slawomir Peszko signed in the summer of 2012, and others such as Kaspars Gorkss and Lee Evans in January, 2013.